Principles to practice in teaching reading

Principles to Practice in Teaching Reading Jennifer Bixby Joe McVeigh CATESOL Santa Clara, CA April 24, 2010

Joe Jenny

Who are you ?

Schema building

What are your top 3 principles for teaching reading?

Principles of teaching reading: an overview

Our main sources
a. b. c. d.
1. 2. 3. 4.

a. b. c. d.
1. 2. 3. 4.
Paul Nation Neil Anderson Bill Grabe Cheryl Zimmerman

1. Develop word recognition skills

2. Move from sentence-level to discourse-level processing

3. Develop lessons structured around pre- during- and post-reading activities

4. Use both intensive and extensive reading

Rate 5. Increase reading speed

6. Focus attention on vocabulary development skills

7. Explicitly teach strategies

8. Develop and maintain motivation

9. Move towards learner autonomy

Principles of teaching reading: an overview

How readers construct meaning

Bottom-up processing

Bottom-up processing
Starting from sounds and letters to make meaning
Identifying words and structures
Focus on vocabulary, grammar, organization
Can include text features such as title, subtitles, text types

Top-down processing

Top-down processing
Comprehension resides in the reader
Reader uses background knowledge and makes predictions
Teacher focus is on meaning-generating activities (Anderson 2008)

Interactive processing

Readers use bottom-up and top-down processes simultaneously
Higher and lower-level processes influence each other (Hedgcock & Ferris, 2009)

Bottom up, top down, or interactive?
Schema-building to activate background knowledge
Learn new words before reading
Study how passive voice is used in a story.
Underline a grammar structure or verb tense
Read for overall meaning, not stopping for unfamiliar words
Write a paragraph using information from two different texts.

Principle: Develop lessons structured around pre- during- and post-reading activities

Pre-reading activity: Schema building

Pre-reading activity: Previewing the text

Preview the Reading
You are going to read a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) webpage from a health Website about the flu. FAQ sheets state commonly asked questions about a topic, followed by the answers. What symptoms of the flu do you know?
Flu FAQ Flu season is coming! Are you prepared? Here are answers to your questions!
What is the flu?
The flu, short for influenza, is a virus that passes easily from person to person. Every year, millions of people miss work and school because of the seasonal flu. Seasonal flu exists worldwide. Usually the flu season is in the winter months, but in warm climates, the flu occurs during the rainy season.
What are the symptoms of the flu?
The symptoms of the flu include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills, and fatigue. These symptoms usually show up quickly, developing within three to six hours of exposure to the virus. With the flu, you may start the day feeling fine, only to end up feeling terrible a few hours later.
What’s the difference between the flu and a cold?
Both are respiratory illnesses, but they are caused by different viruses. Although the symptoms can be similar, flu symptoms are more severe and include a high fever and body aches. Cold symptoms include a runny or stuffy nose and a cough. You may have a slight fever with a cold, but in general, cold symptoms are milder and only last about seven days. The flu can last up to two weeks. It is much more likely to develop into a serious illness and require hospitalization.
--------------------------------
fatigue: great tiredness
respiratory: related to breathing
stuffy: blocked, making it hard to breathe
(from McVeigh & Bixby, in press)

During-reading activity: Keep an important question in mind

During-reading activity: Re-read to find details

Post-reading activity: Critical analysis and evaluation

Post-reading activity: Critical analysis and evaluation In which lines of the reading does the author give factual information? In which lines does the author give her opinion? What clues tell you it is her opinion?

Post-reading activity: Reflection and integration

Post-reading activity: Reflection and integration
Do you agree with the author that technology is bad for human relationships? Why or why not?
Write a paragraph giving your own opinion about the topic. Use quotations from the text to support your ideas.

Principle: Focus attention on vocabulary development skills

How many words are in a large dictionary?
65,000
90,000
115,000
267,000

How many words does a native speaker know?
5,000
10,000
20,000
40,000

How many words does a typical native speaker know?
5,000
10,000
20,000
40,000

How many words does a native speaker know?
5,000
10,000
20,000
40,000

How many words does a language learner need to know?

How many words does a language learner need to know? “ A very large number.” (Nation 2001)

What level of reading vocabulary is fun, challenging, or frustrating for students?

What level of reading vocabulary is fun, challenging, or frustrating for students? 98% of words fun 95% of words challenging <90% of words frustrating

Vocabulary Development Activities
Using a dictionary
Recognizing word forms
Identifying affixes and roots
Understanding collocations
Guessing meaning from context

Not all vocabulary words are created equal

Word frequency
1 st 1000 words 70%
2 nd 1000 words 80%
Academic word list 88-90%
Other . . . . . .

Types of vocabulary
High frequency words
Academic words
Low frequency words
Technical words

Checking on the vocabulary level
Use a vocabulary profiler such as this one at the English Centre at the University of Hong Kong
http://ec.hku.hk/vocabulary/profile.htm

Vocabulary Profiler Results
Frequency Percentage
1 - 1000 words 703 92.1%
1001 - 2000 words 42 5.5%
AWL words 5 0.6%
Off-list words 13 1.7%

Vocabulary Profiler Results
1 - 1000: a about accept addition after agree agreement allow also always an and are as at bad be because bills both broke brothers build business businesses but buy by car cared carried change child children college color could couldn counting course day describe didn difficult dollars done each easy enjoy enjoyed enough escape even every everything expected fact families family. . .
1001 - 2000: afford arguments baby clothes customer customers ducks during dusting exactly fun hated holidays hungry ice lesson lessons lot lots lucky nice parents proud rabbits restaurant salary shelves shop sweeping worried
AWL: adult appreciate communicate eventually jobs
Off-list: budget chutney dusty feeding london menu pakistan shy talents teenager untrained woodworking yelling

Principle: Explicitly teach strategies

Strategy: Monitor comprehension

Filling in a graphic organizer Citizen journalism Traditional journalism

Monitor comprehension: underlining

Questions

Q: Skills for Success Oxford University Press 2011

Thanks to the many photographers on Flickr who provided their photos under a Creative Commons license
Woman reading by subway Simon Carrasco
Pen and writing Nadia Badaoui
Top down convertible “emdot”
Strategies “noagh”
Speed Dan DeChiaro
Scaffolding Kevin Dooley
Scaffolding Cezary Borysiuk
Refrigerator words Joshua Barnett
Question mark Ethan Lofton
Q Thomas Bower
Bottom up Judith Green
Spaghetti recipe Jakob Montrasio
Bearded man reading Ulisse Albiati
Boy on bicycle “woodleywonderworks”

Thanks to the many photographers on Flickr who provided their photos under a Creative Commons license
Processor Karl Ludwig Poggemann
Principles “sarahg”
Pink flowers Eduardo Deboni
Woman w magnifying glass Mike Kline
Written list sunshinecity
Keyhole Sean McGrath
Jumbled Type Pink Sherbet Photography/D Sharon Pruitt
Highlighted book “rocknroll guitar”
Handwritten script “pareeeica”
Interactive Cameron Russell
Divers Robert S. Digby

Download copies of handout and PowerPoint slides (minus copyrighted materials) at www.joemcveigh.org/resources Thank you !

http://www.slideshare.net	22
http://c-web.konan-u.ac.jp	7
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Principles to practice in teaching reading

by Joe_McVeigh on Apr 26, 2010

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